Website design; how do you feel about Lightbox?

William_Robinette

William_Robinette

Shallow Member
So I'm in the middle of designing a new website and I am coming up to am dilema about Lightbox. The site is a personal one for myself so video takes the center stage. Design wise it isn't an issue, but from a user standpoint do you like clicking on a video and then entering a "lightbox" state to watch it (embed from Vimeo) or do you prefer to just have it embedded on the page itself?

Obviously the option to go full screen is there. I don't want it to be design for design sake, which the more I think about it the more it seems to be...
 
I think both can work, but it depends on the overall site layout. Personally, I like the geometry that an embedded video player adds to the webpage, particularly on text-heavy sites (blogs). If your site is more graphical with very little text by comparison, you may consider placing the videos "center stage", and allowing them to lightbox.

Up to you really.
 
Interesting question. I was doing some research at an expo this weekend on behalf of a website. This was specifically brought up. Many people don't like clicking a picture that takes them to another page. They would rather see the "lightbox", so it stays on the page and doesn't take them away from the page.

That's what I was told by several groups of people.
 
Doc Bernard said:
Interesting question. I was doing some research at an expo this weekend on behalf of a website. This was specifically brought up. Many people don't like clicking a picture that takes them to another page. They would rather see the "lightbox", so it stays on the page and doesn't take them away from the page.

That's what I was told by several groups of people.
Click to expand...

Right, I agree with that. Was it discussed the difference between a lightbox and just regular page embedding though? The user is already on the page, they can either click a picture that opens a lightbox, or that picture would just be the video embedded in-line in the page already.

I wouldn't take them to a whole separate page that just housed the video and nothing else.
 
+1 embedded with full screen option. maybe a drarker overalll layout.

lightbox might be finiky or unstable in some browser especiallty with video.
 
Lightbox for video? I think it would annoy me more than anything else. Embedded vids let me contune reading the page while watching the movie, if I want. Lightbox would force me to choose.
 
Of the best solutions I am fond of at the moment are rankin.co.uk and mortenlaursen.com

Check out rankins still portfolio... That works damn well!
 
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